Category Events

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First, it is with great pleasure that we can announce that renowned anthology editor Ellen Datlow has chosen two stories from the First Spectral Book of Horror Stories for her The Best Horror of the Year Volume 7, due out later this year. The stories selected are Rio Youers’ Outside Heavenly and Alison Littlewood’s The Dog’s Home. Congratulations in particular to Rio and Alison, and also to all the other writers too!

The book is still available (order on the Paypal buttons below), and is chock full of excellent stories to thrill and chill. Buy your copy today!

£12.50 UK

£15 EU

$30 US & RoW

RICOCHET by Tim Dry

This novella is selling very nicely, copies going out left, right, and centre. This is sure to be a popular title, so why not grab a copy today!

Tim Dry ans Simon Marshall-Jones talk “Ricochet”

Also, the author Tim Dry and the publisher Simon Marshall-Jones will be appearing on Nicholas Vince’s Book Club Google+ Hangout on 22nd March 2015 at 7pm and on Youtube shortly afterwards. More details can be found right HERE.

(In case you don’t know, Nicholas Vince played the Chatterer Cenobite in the Hellraiser films and Kinski in Nightbreed)

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that The Spectral Book of Horror Stories has been nominated for Anthology of the Year in the This Is Horror Awards 2014. Additionally, Vincent Chong’s masterful artwork for the cover of book has also been nominated for Book Cover of the Year in the same awards.

Just a quick heads up about a forthcoming event – on the evening of November 21st 2014 Waterstones in Leeds will be staging a Spectral Book of Horror Stories event. Editor Mark Morris is going to be there, as will Gary McMahon, Alison Littlewood, and Reginald Oliver, to sign copies and do readings – and publisher Simon Marshall-Jones is also looking to be there to look on admiringly. After the readings will be a Q&A followed by the signing.

For those who know about these things, yes there will be wine available during the event.

A very brief FCon report today (still recovering!) but we just had to tell everyone about the launch of The Spectral Book of Horror Stories at this year’s event. To say it was spectacular would be very short of the mark – the room was absolutely packed, with the queue snaking around the room. THIRTEEN of the authors were signing around a couple of small tables but every one enjoyed themselves (Conrad Williams averring that it was the best signing he’d been involved in in the last twenty years). Many books were sold and some were even sold afterwards too. We think we can safely declare the event a resounding success.

Get in on the act – ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY! (Paypal buttons below)

£12.50 UK

£15 EU

$30 US & RoW

A fuller FCon report will appear soon, plus more of the Joel Lane Archive!

On Wednesday 18th December, at 6:10pm, the British Film Institute in London will be hosting an event called Shades ofDarknessas part of their Gothic Season, where the dramatised ghost story Feet Foremostwill be shown, to be followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Matthew Sweet, featuring actor Reece Shearsmith, author Helen Wheatley, and A Ghost Story for Christmasdirector Lawrence Gordon Clark. Spectral will be there in the guise of publisher Simon Marshall-Jones and Tony Earnshaw (editor of the new Spectral volume on Lawrence’s contribution to British genre television); paperback copies of The Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark will be available for sale and signing on the night, as well as order forms for those wanting the hardback edition (which will be available next month).

It is with great pleasure that Spectral can announce that we will be at Fantastiq – the Festival of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Horror, held on Friday 9th August – Sunday 11th August 2013 at the Derby Quad, Derby, UK. We will be sponsoring an evening with Stephen Volk on the Friday from about 5pm onwards. There will be a Q&A on Stephen’s contribution to and career in genre television and cinema, including his involvement in the infamous Ghostwatch drama, as well as his other films and series, and, of course, he will also be talking about his latest novella Whitstable (from which Stephen will be performing a short reading). Simon Marshall-Jones will be taking part for at least a small part of the Q&A as well, to talk about the novella from the publisher’s perspective.

Following the Q&A there will be a signing session, where Whitstable will receive its second official launch, and there will be copies of the paperback for sale on the night. After the signing, Spectral is proud to present a showing of the 1958 Dracula, starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, a scene from which features in the novella itself.

To start the week off, here’s a new, short review of Paul Kane’s Spectral chapbook Creakers - this one is from Theresa Derwin and has been posted to her Terror Tree blog. You can read what Theresa thought of it here.

NEWS

This month’s issue of Fortean Times (#301 – cover above), the magazine that brings to light all the weirdness this world has to offer, has extensive coverage of Peter Cushing’s centenary, including a long article by Stephen Volk on the actor and his reasons for writing Whitstable. There are also quotes from various luminaries of the horror world about Cushing’s influence on them in their formative years and also why he’s so important to the genre. Also featured is a two page extract from the novella to whet your appetite – the issue will be available soon from your favourite newsstand.

As you know, the book is being launched next month at the Whitstable Museum on the evening of 25th May between 5pm-6:30pm. Stephen Volk will be joined on stage by Wayne Kinsey for a spirited Q&A session, who will also be launching his own book, The PC Scrapbook, the same weekend. Tickets are extremely limited, so secure your place to this event NOW! Tickets can be bought from here.

Spectral is very proud to announce that Stephen Volk’s Whitstable novella will launched in… WHITSTABLE MUSEUM, WHITSTABLE, KENT on 25th May 2013 between 5pm & 6:30pm, as a part of the Whit Lit Festival – a very fitting place in which to do so. There will be a Q&A session with Stephen, and afterwards there will a book signing (Spectral will be there with both hardbacks and paperbacks for sale). This is a ticketed event, and entry will cost £6 – tickets can be obtained from either Whit Lit Festival or TicketSource. Places are extremely limited, so if any of you lovely people intend to go please secure your ticket today!

Whitstable is a beautifully picturesque maritime town on the northeast Kent coast, famous for its Oyster Festival and, of course, the place where Helen and Peter Cushing decided to live in the course of Helen’s illness. The environs of Whitstable have been inhabited since paleolithic times and the town was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Its oysters have achieved fame throughout the world, and have been harvested since at least Roman times. We here at Spectral can’t think of a more wonderfully appropriate setting in which to officially launch this literary tribute to one of Britain’s finest actors.

This promises to be an absolutely scintillating event – look forward to seeing you there!

We would like to wish all our customers, past, present & future, the most joyful of Christmases and a Peaceful and Fulfilling New Year! We will be back soon, with some new and exciting projects!

Watch out for our end of year assessment blog coming very soon!

Simon & Liz Marshall-Jones

PS: All the copies of The 13 Ghosts of Christmas will be sent out after Christmas now, due to the late delivery of the books to us. We sincerely apologise for the delay, but this really was out of our hands! Thanks for your patience!

Various bits of news to get through this morning, so you won’t find us dallying on this beautifully sunny but cold autumn day:

First up is a new review of Mark West’s What Gets Left Behind, the latest in Spectral’s renowned chapbook line. This one’s from Stanley Riiks, editor of the Morpheus Tales Review Supplement, which he has posted (due to space restrictions in the latest Supplement) on his own blog. We particularly like this quote:

“I can’t remember when I’ve read a short story this good. West has done a grand job and the usually excellent quality of the Spectral Press chapbooks is nudged up to stunning with this.”

Last Friday we revealed the cover (by stellar artist Ben Baldwin – above) to the forthcoming Spectral Visions novella from Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch, Afterlife), Whitstable. Although the book won’t be published until next May, in time to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the English actor and wonderful human being Peter Cushing, it has already generated quite a lot of interest and reservations are already being made. To make what promises to be a great book even better, Spectral has arranged a superb deal with Cosmic Hobo Productions: for a special price, not only will you get the limited signed and numbered hardback edition of the book, but you’ll also get a 2 x CD audiobook of Peter Cushing reading his memoirs of the Hammer years, Past Forgetting. You can reserve your copies of both book and CDs by contacting us on spectralpress[AT]gmail[DOT]com. This is sure to be a popular book, so get those reservations in today!

You might also like to know that Stephen will be appearing with revered genre writer Ramsey Campbell at the Newcastle Winter Book Festival on Saturday November 24th 2012 at 6:45pm at the Literary & Philosophical Society, 23 Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1SE. He will be previewing Whitstable at the event, details of which can be obtained here.

Finally, to wrap things up, we are proud to announce that the thirteenth story in the first Spectral Ghost Story Annual (The Thirteen Ghosts of Christmas) will be John Forth’s The Green Clearing. John joins the host of other fine writers (details here) whose stories have made it into what we here at Spectral Towers hope will become an annual tradition looked forward to by all lovers of spooky tales! Congratulations John!

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Spectral Press

Publisher, on a quarterly basis, of very limited edition signed and numbered single story chapbooks in a quality presentation, and devoted to ghostly/supernatural tales. Also publishes regular novellas and a Christmas Ghost Story Annual every December.

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